The Northern District of California recently applied the Ninth Circuit’s ingredients list rule in a putative class action decision. The Court refused to grant Nestlé USA Inc.’s summary judgment motion based on the statute of limitations in a suit involving allegations that Nestlé misleads consumers about the trans-fat content of their Coffee Mate creamer products. The Court held that a triable issue of fact remained because it was not clear when the consumer first learned about the alleged deception.
Subject: Summary Judgment Standards
Ninth Circuit Confirms That Winning Early Summary Judgment May Be the Ultimate Preemptive Tactic for Beating Class Certification
The Ninth Circuit has confirmed that a lack of summary judgment evidence linking a product to concrete injury may properly halt a would-be class action in its tracks if a defendant preemptively moves for summary judgment before plaintiffs have the chance to move for class certification.
As we explored in an earlier post, the plaintiffs in Browning et al. v. Unilever United States Inc. represented a would-be class alleging that defendant Unilever failed to disclose that its St. Ives facial scrubs caused “micro-tears” of the skin. In early 2019, the United States District Court for the Central District of California granted summary judgment in favor of Unilever. The court held that the plaintiffs failed to establish the alleged micro-tears constituted a safety hazard, and found that causation was lacking because the plaintiffs presented no evidence that St. Ives — and not some “other products or lifestyle” choices — caused the complained-of skin conditions.
Keeping Summary Judgment Strong
In this age of exorbitant costs and increasingly high stakes in civil litigation, a robust summary judgment mechanism – one capable of terminating cases lacking in merit long before the extraordinary expense of final trial preparation and trial – is simply critical to a properly functioning civil litigation system.
Recently, Division 8 of the Second Appellate District, California Court of Appeal did its part by contributing to several ongoing debates in California law related to the admissibility of expert declarations offered to oppose motions for summary judgment. Fernandez v. Alexander, 2019 WL 336517 (Jan. 28, 2019)(certified for publication). The court weighed in, at least implicitly, on these important issues: